His conversation must have been remarkably vivid: he had adventures enough to tell, by land and sea; while such a voice as he raised withal in the pulpit, like Edward Irving, has always been potent with women, as Sir Walter Scott remarks in Irving's own case.

His expression, says Young, had a certain geniality; on the whole we need not doubt that Knox could please when he chose, especially when he was looked up to as a supreme authority.

He despised women in politics, but had many friends of the sex, and his letters to them display a manly tenderness of affection without sentimentality.
Writing to Mrs.Bowes from London in 1553, Knox mentions, as one of the sorrows of life, that "such as would most gladly remain together, for mutual comfort, cannot be suffered so to do.

Since the first day that it pleased the providence of God to bring you and me in familiarity, I have always delighted in your company." He then wanders into religious reflections, but we see that he liked Mrs.Bowes, and Marjorie Bowes too, no doubt: he is careful to style the elderly lady "Mother." Knox's letters to Mrs.Bowes show the patience and courtesy with which the Reformer could comfort and counsel a middle-aged lady in trouble about her innocent soul.

As she recited her infirmities, he reminds her, he "started back, and that is my common consuetude when anything pierces or touches my heart.